Chapter 7 Rhianelle #3
"Mm." Helena lifts the ledger from the side table and glances at it. "But it seems your friend has already paid. For two." She sets it down. "A generous coward."
"He did what?" Aelfric straightens. "I don't need this. I'm only here to meet him."
"I'm Helena." She gestures toward the corner without looking at me. "That's Fawn."
Aelfric's eyes find me briefly. My heart stops.
Please. Please don't look at me.
He doesn't recognize me. The enchanted mask holds.
"My name is… Garrett," Aelfric says stiffly. He is a terrible liar. The worst liar I have ever seen in my life.
"I'm just waiting for my friend," he adds quickly.
"Of course," Helena says pleasantly. She pours wine into his cup anyway. "But waiting is such a lonely thing to do."
Aelfric doesn't drink it. He sits with his hands on his knees, the picture of someone trying very hard to be somewhere else.
Helena doesn't push. She simply stays beside him quietly, until the silence does the work for her.
"This isn't right," Aelfric says after a moment. He gestures vaguely at the room, at her, at the silver wig and the mockery gown. "What they're doing tonight. The queen doesn't deserve this."
Helena tilts her head. "You admire her."
"She is my queen."
"You know her personally?"
A pause. "Yes."
Helena's expression shifts into something gentler. "Then we won't pretend." She folds her hands in her lap. "We can simply talk."
He looks at her properly for the first time. Something in him settles, just slightly.
"How do you know her?" she asks.
"We grew up together." His voice lowers. "She used to steal food from the kitchens and make me her accomplice."
Helena listens quietly.
"The princess got us both caught every time." A short laugh escapes him. "I never understood why she kept stealing food."
I was hungry, Aelfric.
The tension in his shoulders drops half an inch. "But she always shared it after."
"She sounds wonderful," Helena says softly.
Aelfric looks at his hands. "She is."
Silence settles between them. Something moves across his face and then goes still. I recognize that look. I have seen it at council tables and on battlefields. It is the look he gets when he has counted the odds and found them against him.
"What's wrong? Tell me what keeps you awake," Helena murmurs. Her fingers find his forearm, light as a question.
He shouldn't answer. I can see him deciding not to.
"Do you love her?" she asks.
"Yes," he says without hesitation.
The word hits me somewhere behind the sternum. For a moment, I forget how to breathe.
Helena's hand moves to his jaw, tilting his face toward hers. "More than is proper?"
"She doesn't see me that way." His voice is rough. "It doesn't matter."
"It matters," Helena says simply.
"I'm not worthy of her."
"You are worthy," Helena murmurs, leaning closer. "So worthy, my brave knight."
This is wrong. I should reveal myself. I should end this. Her hand settles against his chest, light, testing. "Stay. Let me—"
"No." He catches her wrist firmly. "I'm sorry. No."
Helena goes very still. For the first time tonight her composure has a crack in it.
I think she genuinely didn't see that coming.
Neither did I. In a place where people pay for the privilege of her company, Helena had not expected to be turned away.
No one has ever denied her. That much is clear from the look on her face.
The room seems to narrow around them.
Then her eyes fill.
Her chin dips and her mouth presses together. A single tear tracks down her cheek and she lets it go without wiping it away. She turns her face aside.
"Forgive me," she says. "I only thought—it doesn't matter."
"No." Aelfric's hand doesn't leave her wrist. "What is it?"
"I understand," she says softly. "Why you wouldn't want me."
"That's not—" He stops. "That isn't it at all."
She looks up at him through wet lashes.
"If we met differently," he says, and his voice has gone rough. "I would court you properly. I would write first, then show up at your door with flowers. I would find somewhere quiet for the first meal and we could talk."
Helena is very still.
Oh, Aelfric.
"Is that what elves do for a first date?" she asks softly.
"Something like that."
"Would you like to know what I would do on ours?"
She answers by closing the space between them, stepping between his knees. She is close enough that he has to look up at her. Then she lowers herself into his lap carefully, watching his face the entire time.
Aelfric could push her away.
He doesn't.
Instead he reaches for her mask.
She stops him, fingers tightening just slightly. "Not that," she says.
But she removes the silver wig. Ginger hair spills down her shoulders, warm and unguarded. Helena looks entirely different. She looks entirely herself.
Aelfric's hands find her waist before his better judgment can stop them.
"Helena—"
"Like a first date," she murmurs. "That's all."
She leans in slowly. Her lips brush his.
His resistance doesn't break so much as thin, then vanish entirely.
She kisses him softly.
I shouldn't be watching this. I stare at the wall and pretend I am furniture. The ice in my glass melted some time ago. I stir it anyway.
"Would you like my friend to join us?" Helena asks softly, breaking the kiss.
Oh no.
"What—" Aelfric blinks, disoriented, as though surfacing from something deep. The question dies unfinished. He sees nothing beyond her. His hand slides into her hair and his other arm draws her closer, as if anchoring himself.
I rise slowly. They don't notice me, lost in each other.
I slip from the room and bolt.
The corridor swallows me and I keep moving, past door after door, until I find a stretch of empty wall and press my back against it.
He loves me.
Aelfric loves me.
And I never knew.
My knight. My oldest friend. The person who stood at my shoulder through every battle and every council.
I never looked. I never once looked.
"There you are!"
Petal catches my arm before I can reach the exit.
"You're needed. Auction block. Now."
I am still gasping.
"Auction?" I manage.
Petal's expression hardens. "First night girls go on display. Don't look so frightened. Smile."